


The Paint On The Bar

by Grimsonas



Category: Original Character(s) (Transformers) - Fandom, Transformers, Transformers OC - Fandom
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Swearing, mild violence (not too descriptive)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 04:56:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16033430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grimsonas/pseuds/Grimsonas
Summary: To think that something as simple as graffiti could drag Crux and his friends--though that may be pushing it--into something so much more.Painting on the wall that day might have been a bad idea...temporarily, that is.





	1. Chapter 1

“Crux?”  
“Yeah?”  
“I think we’re in trouble.”  
“What is it?”

Crux looked over his shoulder to find Paradox, their lookout, peering over a corner and turning back to the group frantically.

“The CSF.”

Crux dropped the can of spray paint he was holding, leaving the decorations around the words ‘Wildlane eats dust’ unfinished on the side of a grimy looking energon bar.  
According to Paradox, a few feet behind the group were members of the Cybertronian Security Force. They were most likely just patrolling the area, considering their speed--or lack thereof in this case--but to Crux and his incredibly small motley crew, the CSF were darting their way through the streets and alleys like a pro. If the gang didn’t get out of there soon, they’d be caught in no time.

“Crux you moron, don’t just leave the can, that’s evidence!” Skystalker, a skinny but snappy flightmoder mech, began to scold Crux.

“Shut up!”

Despite what he said, Crux scooped the can up and fumbled with it for a few moments before transforming and letting it sit in his backseat

“Everybody go, now!”  
“You don’t have to tell me twice!” Paradox yelped. His servos were shaking the whole time.The rest of the gang began to transform as well, following behind their makeshift leader.  
Well…  
Sort of.

As the groundmoders raced away from the scene, Skystalker began to snake his way to the front of the line. The flames from his exhaust port sputtered in front of Crux and had temporarily blinded him. He swerved all over the road for a few moments and even scraped against a building, leaving a great big scratch across his left side. By the time the flames and exhaust got out of his way, Skystalker was miles ahead of the group.

“Skystalker, what the hell is your problem?! I’m the leader, you should know to stay out of my way! Now I have a gash on my doors because of you!”

Crux shouted at Skystalker over their comm links.

“Look, I’m not trying to get thrown into the slammer because we were being stupid with some spray paint. And besides; who said you were the leader?! If anything, that position should go to me!”

“Why you little--I swear, Skystalker, one day you’re gonna say the wrong thing to the wrong person, and you’re gonna regret it!”

“Oh yeah? Well I hope that person is smarter than you are!”

Before they could argue any farther, they’d made it to the outskirts of the town, and to the front of an old mystery-building that they called ‘home’. The building was tall; not quite a skyscraper, but certainly not a shack in shambles either. It had been abandoned for some time now, and nobody could really tell what it used to be--an apartment was their best guess--but it was safe enough for them to hang out in; so it’s not like they could complain.

They transformed back from their alt-modes and Crux began to grumble.

“Take a look for me, Doxer. Is it bad?”

“Um..” Paradox wasn’t quite sure what to say for a few moments.

“It looks like it’s only cosmetic. Painful, but nothing that Frostbite can’t fix.”

“Hmph. Well, you’re right about the painful part.”

Crux sighed and wiggled his doors to see just how bad it was. He winced.

“Whatever. Let’s just go inside..”

The somewhat disgruntled trio walked inside to find Frostbite, their medic and their tank. Frostbite lifted his gaze from the datapad in his hand to the group and let out a soft gasp as he saw Crux’s wound. He got up from his seat near a cracked window and put a servo up to his mouth.

“What happened?”

Crux pulled the little can of spray paint, which was slightly bent, and tossed it off to the side. He wanted to say ‘Skystalker is what happened!’--but he didn’t. Tensions were already high, there was no use in making the situation any worse.

“..Had a mishap coming home. Scraped the side of a building. All I need is some patching up, docbot, and I’ll be up and at em as soon as possible.”

Frostbite looked Crux up and down quizzically, though decided to brush it off. Skystalker had expected worse, of course, so this response had come as a surprise to him; but he wasn’t complaining. Paradox played along with this and kept his mouth shut, servos clasped tightly together behind his back as he nodded innocently.

“..Right.”

Frostbite could tell that this was probably a lie, but he left it alone--at least, in front of Skystalker, he did--and he took Crux to the makeshift clinic he set up in another room; they sat down and Frostbite began to speak in between tending to Crux’s wound.

“So what really happened?”

“It was an accident, I already told you-”

“Crux, I’ve known you ever since you were a sparkling. I knew your carrier. I knew your carrier’s conjunx. I knew their friends, and their siblings, and more people than that; I know what a lie looks like, sounds like--the whole shebang. So you better go ahead and just tell me what happened already. Go on.”

“..Promise you won’t tell Skystalker?”

Crux’s voice got softer, a bit nervous even.

“I promise. I know how to keep secrets too.”

“...Oh, boy…”

And so, Crux had spilled all of the events and feelings of the day to Frostbite, who continued his work but acknowledged the younger mech’s comments from time to time.

 

“Hmm..”

Frostbite pat Crux on the back as a signal to get up; which he did.

“Thanks doc.”

“Of course. Now, onto the bigger picture; what I think is going on here is some kind of..miscommunication gone very wrong, with a hint of power imbalance, maybe. Here’s my tip: just try to talk to each other. Bring Paradox with you, if you please, but there does need to be a discussion. Who’s the leader? What can you do to make the group better?”

Crux began to nod and take mental note.

“Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Hm.” he said to no one in particular while tapping his chin.

“..I think I’ll try that tomorrow. Thanks, Frostbite.”

“Of course.”

They hugged. It made Crux feel like a sparkling again, but he didn’t really mind it.


	2. Chapter 2

The next day, Crux had somewhat awkwardly tried to start conversation as he, Paradox, and Stystalker cruised their way through the alleyways again. He brought his can of spray paint with him once again--what could he say? He had a job to finish. He didn’t dare tell the others about it though.

 

“So, I guess what I’m trying to say is...well..I...Um…”

“Crux, I appreciate you bringing us out here, I really do, but you’ve really got to spit out whatever you’re trying to say to me.”

“And me!” Paradox squeaked.

“And Paradox.”

“Look, man, I’m sorry, ok? I was being very..difficult yesterday. I even had the gall to call myself leader.”

“Hm. I’ll agree with you on that one.”

“Oh, for crying out loud, can you just stop being like that for one second? I’m trying to--oh, wait-” Crux stopped in the alleyway with yesterday’s graffiti and transformed, spray paint in hand “-anyway, I’m trying to be nice to you!”

“I admit, it’s nice to hear you say sorry, but..oh, you’ve got to be kidding me! You’re doing this again?!”

“Yeah, I’m doing it again, I gotta continue my work! Leaving it unfinished is gonna bug me!”

As the two bickered back and forth, Paradox had a very bad feeling. He turned around and creeped his way to the front of the energon bar the graffiti was on, and gulped as he peered in through a window. Yesterday it had been closed; but today…lights were on; he could see their beams reflect off of a few bots insides. It looked quiet in there. If Crux and Skystalker kept making anymore noise, they’d probably end up getting caught.

“U-Um, guys, you might want to calm down-”

“Why you little--Primus, Crux, you are such a pain sometimes! You know that? This whole thing happened because of you, and your stupid little art projects! Art projects! Ha! Yeah right!”

“If you don’t like it, you can leave!”

“Uhhh….guys?”

Paradox’s optics widened as he looked back from the window. It was a repeat of yesterday, though the outcome was going to be much worse this time..

 

“Well maybe I will leave! Ugh, you are so unbelievable!”

“Stop arguing for one second and listen to me!”

Paradox yelped and began to back away from the door, pointing a digit at the front of the bar. Crux and Skystalker snapped their heads toward Paradox and a wave of nervousness washed over them.

“What..What is it?”

Crux took a few steps towards Paradox, when all of a sudden..

“What the hell is all this noise out here?”

A deep voice, like the dramatic ringing of funeral bells, bellowed out from a mech that could only be described as strongly-built and heavy duty; like a wrecker constructed from intimidation itself. The new mech stomped his way into the scene and glared down the trio.  
Something about him seemed oddly familiar to Crux; like they were connected in some way. Mentally, Crux tried to ruffle through his memories to find that connection, and became paralyzed as a result.

“What are you three doing here? Who do you work for? You have three seconds to answer, or I won’t hesitate to..”

The mystery mech’s gaze landed upon Crux, and he too paused.

“..Wait a second, I know y-”

The mystery mech let out a pained scream and clutched onto his side. Crux came back to reality and stood horrified, as Skystalker was aiming a shaky, smoky arm canon at the unsuspecting con. Paradox was on his comm link with someone and was shaking as well, most likely startled by the incident. The mystery mech leaned against the wall for support, looking down every once in a while to check on his wound.

“You piece of slag..” He grumbled through grit teeth and took deep breaths in and out.

“Skystalker...Skystalker, what did you do?!”

“I-I-I panicked, I just--I, my canon, it--it just-”

“Frostbite said he’s on his way--what are we gonna do?!”

Paradox turned his head back to the bar, in which he saw more cons--friends of the mystery mech, he presumed.

“Boss! Boss, you ok?”

A young looking two-wheeler decepticon hurried to bleeding con’s side. There was a worried look on his face, and before anyone else knew it, 3 other cons had already piled up in the doorway, each one of them wondering the same thing: what happened?

“I’ll be fine.”

“Are you kidding? That looks bad!” The 2-wheeler spoke again.

“I said I’ll be fine! You-” he grunted at Paradox.

“Who were you calling? Was it those damn cops? The bastards, if they see me or my crew, we’re all dead meat!”

“I-I wasn’t calling them, I swear!” Paradox put his arms up in defense and shook his head.

“Then who was it?” He lifted a servo from his wound and immediately covered it up again.

“It was our medic, he’s not a cop, please--please believe me!”

“How can I trust what you’re telling me if I don’t even know who you are? How do I know you’re not lying?”

“Leave him alone, boss, he looks harmless.”

“Looks.”

There would’ve been more bickering had Frostbite not shown up.

“What in the…”

He transformed back from his alt-mode and took a second to let the scene fully process in his mind.

“..I...how did you…”

Frostbite didn’t seemed worried at all.

“Unbelievable. I can’t let any of you out of my sight for two seconds, ‘cause then you’ll do something..something stupid! Like this!”

He gestured to..well...everything.

“How the hell do you go out saying you’ll work out your issues and then end up creating a bigger one?! You’re killing me, you really are, you know that? I can feel my spark slowly burning itself out-”

“Frostbite, you can yell at us later!”

Crux snapped at him and shoved him forward.

“We have something a little more important right now!”

Frostbite rolled his optics. He’d seen his fair share of battle wounds. The mystery mech didn’t even look like he was in pain anymore.  
But..if it got everyone else off of his back, he supposed he could work his magic, just for a moment.  
Frostbite took a quick look at the patient in question and suddenly felt a sense of dread.

“..Bulletback.”

His voice was soft, just above a whisper, but still only low and quiet enough to where he was the only one that could hear it.

“Ain’t this something. Haven’t seen your face in a while.”

The mystery mech, otherwise known as Bulletback, was starting to tire out; but that didn’t mean he lost his sharp tongue.  
The two had some kind of chemistry, and it was plain to see. Crux nervously twiddled his digits and his door wings flapped with anxiousness. It wasn’t only because of the stress of the situation, but also because..he had questions. And lots of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So!! Thankfully I was able to get chapter 2 done today!!!! I hope you all enjoyed it, writing all of this was really fun!!! I might be able to get more chapters out later this evening if I work hard enough!!!


	3. Chapter 3

Time had flown by.  
Frostbite helped Bulletback steady himself and they whispered back and forth to each other, which only made Crux more agitated than he already was. What made things even worse, was that their two-way conversation soon became an open one to all except Crux, Skystalker, and Paradox.

_“What do you mean he’s your…”_

_“You mean..you two are…?”_

_“You know this guy?”_

_“His friend is really pushing it..”_

_“Are you sure it’s him?”_

Crux had tried to focus on whatever they were gossipping about, but only picked up certain phrases. He felt..what was the word?  
Ah, that’s right.  
Helpless.  
Like a lost little sparkling. It was a recurring feeling that Crux was really annoyed by.  
He cleared his throat.

“You guys got something you wanna share with us? With me?”

The group of whispering mechs exchanged a few glances and a few of them backed away.

“You might want to give em some space.”

An older, more responsible looking medium-sized flyer pat Paradox and Skystalker on the backs and gave them gentle pushes into the bar, leaving Crux, Frostbite, and Bulletback alone outside.

“Um…”

Crux wanted to say something, but he couldn’t find the words. It was frustrating. He had wanted to be a part of the conversation, and he had so many things on his mind that he’d like to say out loud if given the chance, and now that he had that chance, it was like his mind went blank.

“Who..Who are you? It’s--it’s just, like, you seem so..so familiar, and like, um..I dunno man, I..do I know you? Or at least, like...do you know me?”

“I’ll let you answer this one.” Frostbite didn’t look in Bulletback’s direction, but it’s not like he needed to.

“Fair. Was thinking it was gonna go to me anyways. Gotta admit, I’m not good at explaining stuff; that job really goes to Frosty here-”

“ _Don’t._ Call me that.”

“-Yeah, so anyway, uh..slag. How do I put this easily?”

“Can you hurry this up?”

“Primus, alright, geez.”

Bulletback took a deep breath in and out.

“So, uh, basically: I, uh..we’re kind of, uh...related.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHAT A TWIST, HUH >:)


End file.
